


have mercy on the natural world

by cheinsaw



Category: Fate/Grand Order
Genre: F/M, Falling In Love, Pre-Canon, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 15:47:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20392186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheinsaw/pseuds/cheinsaw
Summary: Is it a mistake to trust a serpent from the Age of Gods? Perhaps. But Ryouma's never been an ordinary man.





	have mercy on the natural world

**Author's Note:**

> I am a wilderness, yes: the undiscovered continent for you to undress.

When Ryouma comes down from Takachiho, the last thing he expects is for the serpent to follow him. He'd freed her as nothing more than a good deed—he had seen a creature in pain, and decided to end its pain. Nothing more, nothing less. And then the next day she's on his doorstep, as a red-eyed woman with long black hair. "Oryou-san came to eat you," she says. He doesn't turn her away.

Oryou is charming, in her own way. She doesn't like to have her feet on the ground, preferring to float. She particularly likes frogs, and hot baths, and Ryouma. She doesn't like other humans. She insists on being called Oryou-san, honorific and all, and won't respond to anything else.

Ryouma finds himself beginning to like her, the telltale signs of budding romantic feelings overtaking him whenever he thinks of Oryou. If he were asked, he couldn't say what exactly it is about her—sure, she's beautiful, but she is also strong, violent, inhuman. Yet she has never hurt him, despite her occasional remarks about making him into a meal, and he trusts that she never will.

Is it a mistake to trust a serpent from the Age of Gods? Perhaps. But Ryouma's never been an ordinary man.

Oryou, too, grows more affectionate as time goes on. She sometimes rests her hands on Ryouma's shoulders when she floats behind him—he's grown accustomed to it in turn, unconsciously waiting for her gentle grip. She curls into Ryouma's futon in the evenings, telling him she's keeping it warm for him—he doesn't protest. One day he kisses her. She kisses him back.

Summer fades into the autumn of 1864, and Ryouma has fled to Kagoshima with Oryou in tow. ("Oryou-san is coming," she'd said, and Ryouma knows very well by now that even if he had wanted to refuse, Oryou cannot be talked down.) Ryouma enjoys the travel, at least. Even if he must be on the run, it's always been his dream to see all of Japan, and then the world. Oryou, with her fondness for baths, cares only about the area's hot springs. Ryouma can't help but indulge her, and it's not as if he doesn't like visiting onsen himself. 

It's late afternoon when Ryouma returns to the inn where they're staying, after long hours of strategizing and negotiating. Perhaps a hot bath is what he needs right now; he'll just go back to their room and see if Oryou wants to join him.

Ryouma slides the door of their room open to find Oryou sitting comfortably on the tatami floor, obviously in the middle of changing. "Ah, I'm sorry—" Ryouma starts to say, and then cuts himself short as she turns towards him. Oryou's yukata hangs open just enough for him to see her bare chest and stomach, and it fills him immediately with something icy and painful.

There, stretching from between Oryou's breasts almost down to her navel, is a thick scar. It chills Ryouma to see, knowing that this is the mark of Oryou's suffering. It has to be from the spear; there's nothing else it could be. (He may not have been the one to impale her, but he is the one who pulled it out. Ryouma's all too aware that he has a hand in this, at least in some small way.)

"Oh, Oryou-san..."

Oryou's face is blank for a moment, then lights up in recognition. "Ah. Not to worry, Ryouma. It doesn't hurt."

"Still, you had to go through that... I'm sorry, Oryou-san."

"Oryou-san doesn't care anymore. Ryouma got her out, so it's nothing now."

"…Could I touch it?"

"Yeah."

Once she's given her permission, Ryouma slides the door shut behind him, then kneels by her side to reach out to her. This feels more intimate than any other time he's touched her, and her being nearly undressed isn't helping matters. He tries not to let his hand shake as he trails his fingers along her scar, top to bottom.

Oryou shivers, and moves to turn away from him. Ryouma's alarmed for a moment, until Oryou shrugs off her yukata, letting it pool at her waist, and presents her back to him. "There's another here," she says. It matches its twin on her front, running alongside the curve of her spine.

"Oryou-san," Ryouma whispers. "I'm sorry."

Oryou turns her head back to meet Ryouma's eyes. "Ryouma can touch this one too."

Ryouma does. It's nothing more than a raised line of skin, but it means everything: closeness, soothing, comfort. Ryouma never wants to see Oryou hurt again.

Oh.  _ Oh. _ He's falling in love with her.

Well.

"Oryou-san is getting cold," Oryou complains, half-teasing. She pulls her yukata back on, but doesn't tie it shut. "Bath time. Ryouma should come too."

"I was thinking the same thing," Ryouma says. "Would you mind waiting for me? I won't be long."

"Mm. But Ryouma has to wash Oryou-san's back."

"Of course," Ryouma agrees. The tension is melting away from him, now. If Oryou isn't bothered by it, then there's no reason for Ryouma to be. The pair of scars are just a part of her like any other, and Ryouma's already so enamored with every other piece that loving them should be just as easy.

At this moment—he is just a man, taking a bath with the woman he loves. Nothing more, nothing less.

(Far away in space and time, long after Ryouma's murder and long after Oryou begins her eternal rest at the bottom of the sea, they are brought together once again. Oryou is restless, at first: not wanting to sleep when Ryouma could be taken from her a second time. He soothes her, holds her close in their bed.  _ Please don't worry, Oryou-san,  _ he says, and runs his fingers over the familiar scar on her back, bottom to top.  _ I'm here, I'm here. _

So much has changed, and yet nothing has. If he closes his eyes, they're back in Satsuma, cuddling on a futon, or they're falling asleep in each other's arms at a Kyoto inn. As long as they're together, that's all that will ever matter.)

**Author's Note:**

> title and epigraph are from neko case's "hell-on".
> 
> this is as historically accurate as i could physically make it - the real-life ryouma and oryou were married in 1864, which is also around the time ryouma went to kagoshima and started laying the foundations for what would become the 1866 choushuu-satsuma peace treaty. the two of them returned to kagoshima shortly after to help ryouma heal from injuries he sustained during an assassination attempt (which he survived because of oryou!), and that trip is considered to be the first japanese honeymoon - they also climbed takachiho together then, and to my understanding ryouma was super excited about it. this is probably where koha-ace got the "ryouma freed oryou from the spear in the mountain" bit from, but i did have to take some liberties with that. let's just say they went back.
> 
> thank you very much for reading, and you can come talk to me about oryouma/ryouryou any time on twitter @tenhimi


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